Onur Tuna

The Weight of a Cold Stare

Onur Tuna stands six feet three inches tall. That height shaped his years as a basketball player at school, but it wasn't enough to keep him on professional courts. He studied Economics at Dokuz Eylül University while his mind looked for a creative outlet at the Ege University Conservatory, where he trained in Turkish classical music.

Numbers and logic never got the best of him when it came to the score.

In 2011, he landed his first role in the series Hayat Devam Ediyor. It marked the start of a necessary shift from the fashion runway to the film sets of Istanbul. But mass recognition took time to arrive. It wasn't until 2014 that he took on the lead role in Filinta, a historical production that demanded constant physical effort.

The Turkish industry often typecasts actors based on their looks. Tuna broke that pattern in 2018 by playing Alihan Taşdemir in Yasak Elma. The character was a icy, calculating businessman that forced the actor to work with gestural minimalism. And he did it without resorting to the usual tricks of the daytime heartthrob.

He left the series at the peak of its ratings to join Mucize Doktor in 2019. There, he played surgeon Ferman Eryiğit. It was a risky move, since the medical drama depended on a very specific ensemble chemistry. The show averaged TV ratings above 40% in Turkey during its first season.

The risk paid off handsomely.

Away from the spotlight, Onur Tuna keeps an almost obsessive work routine. He writes his own songs and has played guitar since his teens. In 2018, he released his first EP, titled Uzay Misali, on an independent label. For him, music isn't a publicity add-on but a technical necessity for understanding the rhythm of his characters.

Breaking the commercial mold

In 2021, he accepted the role of Fırat Bulut in Mahkum. The story follows a prosecutor who wakes up in prison, accused of murdering his family and unable to remember anything. The shoot was emotionally intense and stretched on until 2022. But Tuna decided not to immediately take on another similar project, choosing to focus on film instead.

He shot the film Benden Ne Olur? in 2022 alongside Hazal Kaya. In this romantic comedy, he stepped away from the seriousness of his previous TV work. He repeated the big-screen experience in 2023 with Son Akşam Yemeği, where he played a complex historical figure as part of the centenary of the Republic of Turkey.

During 2024, he starred in the series Şahane Hayatım, playing Mesut Öztürkmen. The project ended its production run after 30 episodes aired on Fox Turkey. The international distribution deal for this series covered more than fifty countries before the final episode was finished editing.